It’s a bummer we don’t have a season going for my first bind off lace, but such is life.

Here’s my chalice shawl, at about half done.  I’ll be cutting it close, I’ve used 2 of my 4 hanks of yarn.  According to the circular shawl calculator I used, I’m about 58% done.  But since my hanks aren’t the same size (learning moment) I’m not sure how much I have left.  I’m hoping it’ll be enough, but I can just short the pattern if needed.

I thought I’d share a quick trick that I stole from Shadowdancer.  I was bemoaning my desire to spread the work out, but my needles were too short.  She mentioned that she had a “bit of tube like thingy that you could put over the tips of your needles to make them one big cable.”  (ok, the quotes might be a bit unnecessary, as I no-doubt just misquoted her)

“Aha!  “I thought “I know that hardware stores stock small tubing for pond pumps and such.  I’d just need to get a tube smaller than my size 10 needles.”  A quick trip to the hardware store, and $2, resulted in an additional 4 feet of “cable.,” enabling me to lay out my project to photograph it.  “Success!”

I’m really happy with this pattern (which was written by a fellow Season of Lace-er.  Thanks Mary White)  It’s really easy, and the fact that it’s knit in the round means that my accidental color changes look like they were planned.

But whatever the reason for the quietness is, I will show you some of what I have knitted in the last month.

There was my wonderful Catshawl Jellico Cats from Sharon Winsauer. I loved to knit every stitch and love the result.

And for a friend I knitted a stole with oodles nupps.

Soon I will write the pattern for it.

At the moment I’m working on a shawl with yin and yang motivs. I can only show the half of its progress.

Best wishes Utlinde

This yarn is Samantha in Stitches Footcrazy, in the lagoon colorway.  I won this yarn last season, and it is very very lovely stuff.  I’m not sure this is the perfect pattern for this yarn; we’ll see how it goes.  I might have to do another ravelry pattern search, specifically for knee socks, because this yarn is yummy.

The other thing in my knitting basket is the direct result of my catching the spinning bug.  A couple months ago I bought 4 oz of Blue Face Leicester roving, and after much spinning ended up with some lovely light fingering to laceweight yarn.  (And yes, it varies that much.  I’m still exploring spinning)

After a bit of puttering around ravelry, wanting just *the perfect* pattern I decided on the Chalice Triangle Scarf.  I knew I wanted something knit in the round, to help even out the color changes.  Since I’m not sure how much yarn I have, and because Murphy likes to take his law out for walks around knitting patterns; I wanted something that could I could fudge the edges on.  So far, I’m *extremely* proud with how it’s turning out.

Oddly, now that I’m over the spinning bug, I realized I really missed knitting during that time.  I’m back to lace, and feeling back to myself.   And before anyone freaks out about the safety pins in my lace, they’re coil-less.  And deranged pixies ran off with all of my stitch markers.  I’m ever so annoyed.

Once upon a time, I seemed to knit nothing but lace.  Lace lace lace.

I loved lace so much, I talked my dear friend into helping me start a Giant Repeating Lace KAL.  We called it Seasons of Lace.

I loved lace and the KAL so much that I spent my life knitting lace, and chatting up all sorts of lovely people who design lace patterns and sell lace yarn, so that they would donate lovely lace related prizes to the folks who joined in our lace KAL.  And still, I knit lace.

And then there was life.  And massage school.  And suddenly, I was buried in way too much to do!

It got so bad that lace all but disappeared from my needles. It’s been socks, and a shadow-knitting afghan that I was effectively commissioned to design and knit.  And the current lace project languished, pining for my attention.

In many ways, it was simple (ish) math that was getting between me and my lace knitting.

I’ve gone on a tear, and am adapting Susan Pandorf’s Dwarrowdelf Stole pattern for use as curtains.  This means I needed to make them a lot WIDER to fit my windows.  So, I hauled off and knit a top edge, vastly increasing the number of repeats called for by the stole pattern.  And then I looked to see what the ratio of repeats on top edge piece would be to the repeats on the body, and my brain fried a little.

I knew that the repeats on the top edge were 14 rows “wide”.  I knew that the ends of the top edge included a five row edge. (I spaced for the longest time on the three rows of set up at one end and the four rows of … well… set down at the other).  I knew that I was getting approximately 7 rows to the inch.

I knew that the repeats on the body would be 24 stitches wide.  I knew that the ends included a 9 stitch edge on one side and an 18 stitch edge on the other.  And… I knew that I was getting approximately 6 stitches to the inch.

Clearly, forgetting those 7 extra rows bollixed me up for a while. But suddenly, after my brief escape to Oak Park, I made the math work!  And here, we see the winding up of the skinny top edge:

It’s pushing 44 inches long here.  The next thing I did was that five row edge, and bind off.  I’m now in the throes of picking up three hundred and some odd stitches along the edge that runs along the left side in that picture.  So much for something to work on where the rows are short and I can feel like real progress happens when I knit for a few minutes.

As of now, I’m two-thirds of the way through the Rock Island chart, which seems to be working out more or less OK, with a little help from the utterly necessary highlighter pens, and very occasional fudging. Because really, truly: I’ve tried tinking lace rows, and I don’t know if other people can do it, but I. Can. Not. If my life depended on it, the wake would have been held long ago, and the moss would be growing over my grave already.

This yarn is Lost City Knits new Pathways Sock Yarn in the “Extra Virgin” colorway.  And man, is it a nice yarn.  Denise informed me that she got a new base yarn, which is super soft and squishy.  It’s a great sock yarn.  And have you seen the colors she gets? I have to be careful not to go look at the pages too much, it’s bad for my budget.

Lately I haven’t been knitting as much.  I recently caught the spinning bug instead.

And just so lovely.  I knit this in BMFA Socks that Rock Mediumweight, in Mossay, a really beautiful color.

Normally, I’d take pictures of the lace blocking.  However, I’m not going to block this one.  I realized that as it is now, it fits perfectly.  Blocking would screw that up.  So instead, here’s a picture of me wearing my wisp after having just walked the dog.

Hey, I never said it was pretty.  But it works like a charm.  I figured I might as well do the “awkward picture in the bathroom mirror with the cell phone” since there’s no way to make this look elegant.

Besides, everyone needs a chance to laugh.

It was perfect.  Worked splendidly.  Was hard to replace.  That’s when I knew, inevitably it would get lost.  So I picked up some yarn to begin knit one for the husband.  I figured I could steal his when mine went a walkabout.

Recently, I cast on for my replacement wisp (sadly, the day later my finished one vanished-> along with the unseasonably warm weather)

Wisp, knit in Classic Elite Silky Alpaca laceweight (70% alpaca, 30% silk)  I chose this color because it’s very gender neutral, as I’m hoping to knit one for my husband, so I can steal it when I misplace my own.

And from Land O’ Lace, a skein of Kayla, 100% silk, in this silvery Tonka Bay colorway. Just gorgeous. Clearly a scarf or shawl in the making!

I guess I was really in the mood for silvery when I won!

Thanks to our wonderful sponsors!

But now I have succeeded at last! And I can share with you all my super-duper excitement at getting 9 stitchmarkers (9!) from the totally fantastic Gloria Patre. Thank you so much, Gloria. They are gorgeous. The tea is also much appreciated; I am of the strong opinion that no problem – not even gauge issues – is so big that it can’t be solved with tea.

I have also been sent the first clue for the With or Without mystery shawl, which I won from Tiziana Sammuri. I am still dithering over yarn choices, but I hope to cast that on very soon. Thank you, and I can’t wait to be surprised by it.

All in all, an excellent start to the new year, don’t you think?

First I picked up 2gorgeous skeins of Samantha in Stitches Footcrazy Sock yarn ( 75% superwash wool, 25% Nylon) in the beautiful Lagoon Colorway.  Since each skein is 450 yards, I’m seeing either a shawlette or, more likely, a pair of knee socks in my future.

The second price I won, I’m so lucky, is 2 skeins of 100% wool from Finland!   I’m not sure what the yarn name is (I’m guessing Yleislanka) but it’s a gorgeous green cobweb weight(?) with 765 yards per skein.  That means that I’ve got over 1500 yards to play with, I’m so excited.

Quick question:  Can anyone explain the difference between lace weight and cobweb to me?

I’d like to thank everyone for donating the prizes.  And thanks to the board moderators who do everything to make SOL work.  You rule.

Best wishes Utlinde

Thank you Cathy! Now I just need to decide what to do with it…

While I was posting this here, I thought I’d mention that I finally finished my Swan Lake which I had been working on this summer.

I originally started this in 2007, restarted it in 2009, and finally finished this fall. (If you would like to see more pictures or details, they are at my blog or my Ravelry project page.)

Looking forward to more lace in the New Year!

Knit with Elann Baby Silk (80% alpaca 20% silk) on size 5 needles.  If I were to do this again, I’d go up a bit in needle size.  It came out a bit smaller than I was expecting.  Hopefully it’ll make a good present regardless.